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Stitches in time
By Jessica Creson, The Daily Reflector
Monday, July 25, 2005
Maria Shevzov won't let go of the past.
Shevzov, a May graduate from East Carolina University who now manages ECU's costume shop, has embarked on a project that requires immense patience and commitment. She is attempting to recreate an 1895 bodice as accurately as possible.
The finished reproduction will be donated to the Beaufort County Arts Council, to be displayed in their museum. The bodice will be in about three to four pieces, so the details can be seen, and possibly touched.
The reproduction will show not only duplicate the original in looks, but show how it was made. The 1895 garment will be on display as well, for comparison.
"It's a pretty huge project," Shevzov said. "With research, background work and sewing 2 to 3 yards of beaded trim by hand, it will take a couple-hundred hours.
A bodice is the upper part of a woman's dress. It can be worn either attached or unattached to the skirt, but it gives the impression of being a separate piece of clothing. It would traditionally be fitted and worn over a blouse. Bodices are not to be confused with corsettes, which are an undergarment most similar to a bra.
The bodice that Shevzov is using as her blueprint was discovered recently in the attic of the Rumley family in Washington, N.C., when they were cleaning out their old house. The Rumleys knew about Jeff Phipps, ECU's costume-shop manager at the time, and called him to see if he and the shop had any use for the antique garment. The bodice was too old to be worn, so Phipps asked Shevzov, who was working for him in the shop, if she wanted to do anything with it.
He knew she would.
Coincidentally, ECU was offering a Creative Activity and Research grant around the same time Phipps came to Shevzov with the bodice. Her application addressed how she wanted to reconstruct the bodice. ECU gave her $1,500 toward her efforts.
The project allows Shevzov to practice much of what she had studied – selecting the right fabrics, the way certain clothes were worn and by whom, where to buy specific materials and the importance of the relationship between all these things. She created her own major at ECU, in neo-historical clothing, which combined history, textile arts, apparel merchandising and costume design.
"In my mind they all overlapped," Shevzov said. "I could not see one without the other."
Her interest in historical clothing started at an early age. Her grandmother, born in 1918, gave Shevzov her wedding dress when she was a child.
"I am interested in history from the people, not just the past," she said.
She attributes her passion for history to her grandfather, a Russian refugee who came to the United States after World War II. When she was young, he told her stories of being chased by troops, and of hiding from them. Shevzov had the opportunity to visit Germany when she was older and go to some of the places where her grandfather had hidden.
"It was the most amazing thing," she said.
Shevzov feels a garment can tell a lot about a person and what was happening at the time it was being worn.
Styles are obviously very different.
"The biggest thing from looking at [the original] is the idea of what constitutes what was a well-made garment to what is a well-made garment," Shevzov said. "It shows what was important to them," she said.
Larger stitching was popular in the 1800s, which is quite different from how clothing is assembled today.
The original bodice emphasizes a tiny waist, flat hips and large shoulders. The garment is heavily beaded around the neck and shoulders.
The Rumleys were a prominent family in Washington when the bodice was made, most likely, by a tailor, according to the wearer's specific taste.
Researching a garment's history is one of the first steps to reproducing it, after making sure it's actually an original.
Shevzov's digging covered a lot of ground, from interviews with the Rumleys, various experts and clothing historians, to sorting through a collection of magazines from the late 18th century.
As she continues her investigation, and taking the original apart to see how it was put together, she's documenting her findings in detail, so other people can use what she's learning as a guide.
"I feel I have a certain relationship to history and garments, and I wanted to reproduce (the bodice) for others to see and pass it on," she said. " I could make another one now, but I want it to be exact and document everything. ...The documenting has been fabulous.
"Most challenging is finding materials and trying to be [historically] accurate within budget." For instance, silk and the exact velvet used in the original are neither cheap nor easy to find.
But Shevzov is enjoying the search, and the challenge.
"I don't think there's anything much more valuable for me right now," she said. "I have a pattern, research and sense of accomplishment."
And when it's all done, she added, "I will have also preserved a piece of history."
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